Contrary to the popular opinion that call centre staff are uneducated, modern day sweat-shop workers, they are in they are in fact a group of intelligent, highly educated professionals. New research released today by leading recruiter Hays Contact Centres in conjunction with the Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service found that 25% of call centre workers are educated to undergraduate university level or above.

The study, which questioned over 600 contact centre professionals – both contact centre agents and those in team leader/management roles - also found that two fifths (39%) of call centre staff have ‘A levels’ and nearly a quarter (22%) have BTEC or HND qualifications. Once viewed by many as a stop-gap job, over a third (35%) of agents said they see themselves working in a contact centre long-term. 40% agreed that contact centres offer clear career paths and over half (53%) of agents said they would recommend a career as a call centre agent to a friend, indicating that they now see huge value in working in this industry which was once seen as one of the worst places to work.

Almost a third of the contact centre agents (32%) questioned said that interacting with customers was the most enjoyable part of their role, with a good work-life balance/flexible working options coming close second (27%).

The recession has also had a positive impact on roles within the contact centre industry with nearly 40% of contact centre agents stating that they would not have considered a job in a call centre industry before the economic crisis. 37% of managers support this, stating that it’s now much easier to recruit than it was a few years ago, with 29% of managers saying that a higher calibre of applicants is being attracted to the industry. 51% of managers noted that fewer people are now leaving the industry. 67% of call centre managers say they will continue to work in a call centre when the economy picks up, indicating that for those professionals who make the most out of the ample training on offer and progress in their roles find that the contact centre industry is a great place to carve out a career.

Call centre managers believe that having strong communication skills is now even more crucial for contact centre employees: prior to the recession 22% believed it to be the most important skill, whereas now 40% put it at the top of the list. Customer service skills are deemed slightly less important since the recession with a 7% decrease in respondents stating that these skills were the most important. Almost three quarters (71%) of management questioned said they had not introduced new methods to improve customer service in order to respond to challenges posed by the recession.

Geoff Sims, Managing Director at Hays Contact Centres, comments: “The majority of contact centre professionals are happy to be working in this industry and the survey results give us an indication as to why. Many, driven by their personal career plans, see it as a rewarding career and one with a clear route of progression, with many of them viewing it as a long term career. Employers must be doing what they can to retain the best talent and ensure that the focus is on employee career progression and matching individuals flexible working requirements – two of the biggest motivators for those in a contact centre role.”

“In the past call centre jobs have been considered by many as a stop-gap solution, but things are changing and graduates are now viewing call centres as good places to develop their careers. With over a million call centre ‘seats’ in the UK alone (representing 3% of the UK workforce) and call centres offering great training and a clear career path it is not surprising that more people will start to consider a career in customer service.” noted Simon Thorpe, Programme Director, Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service.

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About Call Centre Focus

Call Centre magazine covers all aspects of the call centre industry and customer service in general. Articles give practical advice and tips on how to ensure successful and effective customer contact and the regularly updated website (www.callcentre.co.uk) ensures that readers are kept abreast of the very latest market news. In short, it is a one-stop-shop for call centre professionals everywhere.

About Top 50 Call Centres

The Top 50 Call Centre initiative is a benchmarking exercise, in partnership with GfK NOP, a leading independent market research organisation, and sponsored by Genesys & Noble Systems. Its aims is to help call centres find out how the general public thinks they are performing through over 17,000 mystery shopping enquiries, half of these from current customers of each independent call centre.

Calls will be rated for customer service criteria identified by the customers themselves including timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalisation. The calls will reflect different enquiry types from simple requests to more complex enquiries, truly reflecting the range of calls the call centre receives. They will take place at different times of day, during peak and non peak periods, including weekends.

For further information please visit: www.hays.com/contactcentres

About the survey:
This survey went out to contact centre professionals across the UK and had 635 respondents.

Note to Editor:

Hays Contact Centres is part of Hays plc (the “Group”) is the leading global specialist recruitment group. It is market leader in the UK and Australia, and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe. The Group employs 6,933 staff operating from 345 offices in 28 countries across 17 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2009:

– the Group had revenues of £2.4 billion, net fees of £670.8 million and operating profit of £158.0 million;

– the Group placed around 50,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 270,000 people into temporary assignments; and

– the temporary placement business represented 56% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 44% of net fees.

For further press information please contact:
Sarah Swailes
Hays
T. 020 7630 4282
E. sarah.swailes@hays.com

Kerry Davis
Wildfire PR
T. 020 8339 4420
E. kerryd@wildfirepr.co.uk